Case Three
by Clockwork Spades
Summary: It's his third case. How could he let it happen? He was so sure.. Lawyer AU. Arthur reflects on his case. Oneshot.


**Case Three**

Lawyer AU. It's his third case. How could he let it happen? He was so sure..  
Arthur reflects on his case. Oneshot, made for tumblr.

It's dark in the bedroom of his crummy apartment. The sun has long since set and he never bothered to get up and turn the light on. Instead, he sits on the edge of his single bed, head slumped with his shoulders as he hides his face in his hands. His suit jacket is thrown across the sheets and his tie is half undone.

He stays silent. Well, who could he talk to in an apartment with no roommate and no friends to call? But he doesn't make a sound. He doesn't choke on his breath. He doesn't sob. He doesn't mutter. The only sound that comes close to breaking the silence is his laboured breathing. He's close to hyperventilating but the sound is muted as possible. Through cracks in his fingers, emerald eyes stare, wide open at the floor. They blink, over and over, but it doesn't do anything.

Not three hours ago, he was in a courtroom. Standing as he spoke for the police. The case was simple, a woman's sister and niece were murdered, what wasn't simple was the lack of evidence against the defendant. He was sweating. He could feel it, clammy against the undershirt beneath his suit.  
The defendant's solicitor was good. Good? That is not the word. Brilliant? Impressive? Ingenious? She was a bloody show off and she could barely keep the smirk off her face is what she was. Obnoxious, arrogant and too sly for her own good. Arthur had planned his strategy, with little evidence to work on and only the words of the woman and the force he had planned a perfect way to prove this man was the murderer and win his case.  
But he didn't.  
The sweat beginning to dampen his forehead was the first sign to the defendant that he was losing. He tried, he changed tactics, stabbed at the man's alibi but it was solid as rock. And he faltered, the other one caught him off guard when he withdrew a statement and he lost his footing. The sweat on his hands made any way of regaining his footing slip through his fingers.  
And he lost.  
He lost the case.  
And that slimy lawyer walked away with a grin to match her client. Arthur looked. He could barely stand it, but he had to look at the woman. She wasn't disappointed, and in many ways that made it worse. All he could see in her face was sadness, pure grief that only one that has lost everything and then more could show. He looked back up as he placed his briefcase down just in time to see his opposition glance back and smirk. He could tell. The look in the defendant's eyes told him he did it. That he killed them.  
And Arthur finally understood the detectives.  
Even with the tiniest piece of evidence, and a concrete alibi for the suspect, you know whether it was them or not. Especially with the psychos who do unspeakable things to their victims. And it was. He could see it in those eyes. The eyes that mocked him as they left the courtroom, scot-fucking-free. Arthur had seen the crime scene, he had to for this case. He'd seen what the man had done to the girl and her mother, but there was no proof. Not a scrap. Not a reliable one anyway, but enough to go to court on, and he swore he would put that man in prison.  
And he didn't.  
He promised the woman would, he promised the force he would, he promised that slimy, obnoxious lawyer that he'd put her client behind bars. And he didn't.  
It was made all the worse in the way he could still see the smirk and eyes taunting him. And the look in that woman's eyes. And the frustrated sighs of the detectives. And the way his boss asked how it went when he left the courtroom.

He didn't look up his entire way home; not on the street to find a taxi, not up the stairs to his crummy apartment, not through the doors. Somewhere he had dropped his briefcase on the way to his bedroom. It didn't matter where. He threw off his jacket onto the sheets and dropped onto the edge of the bed. He yanked at his tie, giving up when he was half-way done and the reality caught up with him.  
He let a murderer go free.  
Not only that, but a psycho.  
A psycho with a damn good lawyer who made him slip up and loose. Made him lose his third case, disappoint the woman who he had promised, sworn to. One slip up caused by one slimy lawyer.

It was only made worse by that fact that the slimy lawyer was his sister.


End file.
